


Master the Passion and the Greed

by Mia_Zeklos



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many years after Ianto's death, Jack ends up on a planet ruled by a creature whose face has never been seen, and the legends say that it holds the laws of the Universe in its hands. So, of course, Jack is bound to make an appointment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t really have an explanation for this.  
> References: Demons are known to make deals in biblical myths, and Lilith was the first demon, so there’s a bit of a wink to that here.  
> I hope you enjoy the story and I’d love to know what you think, so feedback is appreciated!

The sky was completely black, all the stars blinded by the enormous cluster of light in the middle of the sky. They called it the Tantalus Eye here on Moldox and it was, as far as Jack had been informed, a wrinkle in time. It was an anomaly; a paradox named so only by its mere existence, and Jack felt he could sympathise with it, especially today. He stared deep into it, where the Time Vortex sang its endless song and where the locals believed all the secrets of the Universe were hidden, and sighed deeply.

 

“You’ve got something weighing on your heart, soldier.”

 

Jack looked up. A woman sat next to him and stared at him intently, apparently curious. She looked like all the others on that planet – long white hair, despite her apparent youth, darker skin and strikingly green eyes. It seemed to be the most common appearance here, even if it varied occasionally.

 

“You could say that,” he agreed softly. “Bad day.”

 

“I can see that,” she said, tone sympathetic. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

 

Ah, yes. They were mildly telepathic too.

 

“It was a long time ago, but thank you.”

 

“Not long enough for you to stop mourning, was it?” the woman persisted. “When did he die?”

 

Jack laughed mirthlessly. “That would happen to be the thousand year anniversary today.”

 

Her eyes widened and, even though she was trying to hide her surprise (even so far into humanity’s development, when everyone was much more honest about everything, there was a little tact left when it came to death), Jack knew shock when he saw it. “And you haven’t been looking for help? Who’s worth grieving for that long?”

 

“Of course I’ve looked for help,” Jack snapped. “Don’t you think I’ve tried a million times to fix myself? It’s not working. _Nothing_ I try is working. He was– something else.”

 

“I didn’t mean looking for distractions,” the woman said carefully. Her voice was soft and melodic and Jack found himself calming down gradually, only to become agitated once more by her next words. “Why haven’t you tried bringing him back?”

 

“Impossible,” he shot back immediately. “And when it _is_ possible, it doesn’t end well.”

 

“And why would that be?”

 

“Because if someone’s dead, they’re dead. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

 

Jack wasn’t trying to be rude; he just wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible. He’d come into the Palace’s gardens for some peace and quiet in the overpopulated human colony he was currently inhabiting. He just wanted to be alone.

 

A thousand years. He’d loved and lost so many people, but most of the memories about them had slipped from his mind like sand through his fingers and had hardly left anything behind except for the vague realisation that time was passing and the weight added to all the losses he’d already had to endure. And yet, one particular ghost had never left him.

 

He hadn’t even had to make himself remember. Ianto had seared himself into his mind like a star forever stuck in the last moments before its explosion – painfully bright and terrifyingly beautiful; too big of an energy even or itself. Jack remembered everything about him down to the most ridiculous details and not once or twice he’d had _wanted_ to forget, to let him go, just so he wouldn’t have to keep suffering.

 

And here he was, a thousand years later. The Earth was hardly habitable now and most of its citizens had fled nearly two centuries ago and he’d found himself on one of the human colonies – Moldox – and had decided to stop here for a few days. The summer of 3009 wasn’t all that eventful for them, which was a gift for him.

 

Jack looked around himself. Ianto would have loved all of this; he knew it. He’d have watched everything around himself with that quiet awe that was usually saved for the most intriguing artefacts they got through the Rift and the Captain could imagine him here and now, even as his heart felt heavy with the overwhelming sorrow that took over him sometimes.

 

“Not if you know someone who holds the laws of the Universe in his hands,” the woman threw in enigmatically and pulled him out of his thoughts.

 

“And you know such a person, don’t you?” Jack wasn’t in the mood for mysteries. He wasn’t in the mood for anything, as it were.

 

“I happen to, yes.” She didn’t seem at all perturbed by his hostility. “Everyone near Tantalus does.” She leant in conspirationally. “There’s a man who can toy with life and death as easily as it is for you to breathe. His family has had the gift for it for millions of years and they see and hear everything that happens in the Universe. Universes, even; the potential results of everything are their business.”

 

“And that’s your offer?” Jack asked sceptically. “That’s what you’ve got on Moldox? A faceless god who takes care of all your needs?”

 

“Of course not.” The woman’s smile was condescending. “It’s not magic; it’s science. Thousands of years ago, the first of their line found a way to fly to the Eye and even managed to enter it. Or, well, that’s what we’re told today. That’s how they got their gifts. Then it started running in the family, reaching–”

 

“–your current ruler,” Jack finished instead of her. “What happened to the previous one?”

 

“The people from his family don’t age and very rarely die, but they can choose to do so if they want to. We call it ‘going to sleep’. They die– deliberately.”

 

“They die by choice?” Jack asked incredulously – and not without some small dose of jealousy – and raised an eyebrow. She nodded. “And why do you think that he’s going to help me?”

 

“Because he’s a benevolent god.” The woman shrugged and looked down. “His father was often cruel to us, but the king we have now is kinder. They say that it’s because he grew up on Earth, but I don’t know how that would have anything to do with it. Earth was barbaric.” Jack made a small sound of acknowledgment. “Some of the legends say that he lost the one he loved and it made him more willing to help others; others say that this was where he _found_ love and that’s why he helps. The ones before him rarely – if ever – brought people back from the dead. Nevertheless, if he’s going to do it, he’s going to want something in return.”

 

“I can pay anything you’d want,” Jack said quickly. Because really, what price could possibly be too big if he didn’t have to be alone anymore?

 

The woman smiled and got up gracefully from her place next to him. “Good. He says that you can come in whenever you like. Consider yourself lucky; audiences are rather rare.”

 

“How do you communicate with him if he never gets out of that castle?”

 

She tapped her temple. “Telepathic, remember? I’m his– receptionist would be a good word, I think.”

 

“And why has he shown interest in my case?” Jack called after her as she started walking in the direction of the building. “Does he think that I have a lot to offer?”

 

“Oh, I don’t think it’s that at all.” The woman turned around with a small smile. “He says he’s bored.”

 

**o.O.o**

Jack looked up at the castle towering over him. For all the technical development of the human colonies, it still looked very much like any medieval castle he’d seen on Earth and, while he had to admit that it was rather fearsome, he couldn’t wait to get inside.

 

He didn’t even know what to expect. The planet itself was so lively, so full of hope, and their leader was shrouded in darkness and the fog that plagued the whole place.

 

Maybe he just liked being dramatic. They could probably click together well, if he was human at all. Perhaps they could click together well if he _wasn’t_ human, too.

 

“What’s your name?” He asked. The woman was leaning against one of the columns and was watching him expectantly.

 

“Lilith.” Her voice was soft and her eyes were curious. Jack wondered how many people had dared to do what he was about to and how many of them had returned.

 

“Well, Lilith, I think it’s time your boss started socialising.”

 

She chuckled darkly and patted him on the back as he went past her. “Good luck with that. And remember – there’s always a price.”

 

Of course there was, Jack thought. Bringing someone back to life was a rather complex process and he idly wondered if he’d gone insane for trying this at all. There was mostly desperation reigning inside him and yet, hope was blossoming as well, so he decided that it was perhaps time to act on it.

 

Ianto. Maybe after all these centuries, just maybe, he would see Ianto again.

 

When the doors swung open before him, Jack was welcomed by darkness ahead and a dimly lit corridor on his left. It led to a long line of doors but he ignored them; he was quite sure that he was meant to go straight forward and into the door he could just make out in front of him. When he did, it closed right behind his back – which wasn’t all that surprising – and he was left in complete darkness.

 

“Hello.” The voice came from nowhere in particular and Jack heard it echo around the – apparently – vast room. It was deep and rich and sounded rather amused, which immediately got him on guard. He didn’t even know what he was facing here. God knew what kind of creature amused itself by making people’s wishes (especially ones that went against nature’s laws) come true.

 

“Hello.” Jack felt ridiculously small. “I was told that you could help me.”

 

“I know.” He was suddenly much closer and Jack swirled around, only to be met by more darkness. He couldn’t make out anything; not even his own hands when he looked down. “I heard you.”

 

“How?” Jack’s voice was shaky now and he was rather embarrassed to admit it, but he quickly realised that he couldn’t control it. “The people outside– I asked about you. Everyone says that you can do anything they want you to do.”

 

There was a scoff that sounded strangely human and Jack found himself relaxing. Still, there was fear brewing inside him – some deep, ancient terror that the mind probably produced when it realised that it could as well be talking to its own creator.

 

“I can. Doesn’t mean I do any of it. But,” the voice was higher pitched for a moment and Jack turned around once again as it moved from his left to his right. “I _heard_ you.”

 

Jack tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “And what made me so special? Why did you call me in?”

 

“Because I can see and hear everything.” There was no sound but the voice went around him and Jack got the impression that he was pacing in a circle around him. “I heard all of the prayers directed at any god or goddess at any point in time and space. And it’s all the same. I want, I want, I want. And all of a sudden, there you are.

 

“And you want a lot as well,” the voice conceded after a small pause. “But what impressed me was for how long you’ve wanted it. You’ve lost your lover, haven’t you? Except... that’s not really the word in your head, is it?” Jack tensed. He’d never spoken to anyone about this, never. “ _Ishti_ , as you’d say it in your native language. _Beloved._ Because ‘lover’ sounds as if it’s someone else doing the loving, and you’ve had a lot of that, haven’t you? You can have many lovers, but the beloved is only one.”

 

Jack nodded, even though there was no one to see him. The darkness was too thick, unless the other participant in the conversation had some sort of night vision tech.

 

“So I was curious. I started wondering why. He was just a boy from Earth. Died when he was, what, twenty-five?”

 

Jack nodded again. “He would have been twenty-six in a month,” he said quietly, surprised by the tenderness in every word he spoke. He knew that there was love, yes; he was aware of its overwhelming presence every waking moment, but he hadn’t expected that even after all those years he could find it in himself to be _fond_ of Ianto.

 

“See? That’s what I mean. He’s barely even lived at all, and you spend centuries mourning him. You’re willing to make a deal and pay a possibly dangerous price for it just to get him back, even after all the time that’s passed. What for?” Jack opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn’t given the chance. “You’ve tried bringing him back once before, too. House of the Dead, was it? And you almost did it. But he tricked you. Sealed himself on the other side of the Rift just to save a world that didn’t care nearly enough.”

 

“Stubborn bastard,” Jack muttered, mostly to himself. “That’s why I loved him so much.” The last part he’d said louder so the voice could hear. “You wanted to know why; there it is. Because he was so young and there were so many days that never came, so many possibilities wasted for a world that never gave him all that much. An entire life swallowed by Torchwood and the Rift. He was lost, just like me. We were both broken and the shards managed to fit together. I want that back.” His tone had dropped down to a whisper once again. “I just want him back.”

 

There were several moments of silence and, just when Jack was starting to fear that the man – it he was a man at all – wasn’t here anymore, the voice echoed around the room once more.

 

“I lived on Earth once,” he started. “Normal, standard human, or so I thought. Then I was informed of my– heritage and I was told that it had all been with educational purposes for me. So I could understand humans better, you see. I was offered the chance to go home.

 

“I didn’t. Since you’ve asked about me, you’ve heard the stories. Love lost or love found; there are two versions. In fact, both of those happened. By the time I was faced with that choice, I had fallen in love, I was in too deep. I got carried away. So believe me, I know how you feel.”

 

“So you can do it?” Jack asked, voice raspy with anticipation and a healthy dose of disbelief. “You can bring him back for me?”

 

“I’ve already told you.” Now the voice sounded bored again. “I’m capable of everything.”

 

“ _Will_ you, then?” Jack took a deep breath when there was no response. “Will you do it? Get him back to me?” It still sounded so surreal, but Jack was holding on to it for dear life. It was like waking up after a long, long dream; suddenly every breath and every blink and every particle of dust in the air seemed a thousand times more significant and real.

 

There was a deep sigh. “Yes, I will. You can have your Ianto back.”

 

“There’ll be a price, of course,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. If he needed to make a bargain, then he would, he’d give up anything that he was asked to – not that he had so much material possessions, really – but he’d do so with dignity.

 

“Oh, not really. I already told you; I know how you feel. And your case is– special. It is to me, anyway.”

 

Jack laughed incredulously. “So you’ll bring back a man from the dead for free?”

 

“It won’t take as much effort as you probably imagine. You were right, Jack.” The darkness around him started dissipating and suddenly Jack found himself looking straight into the eyes that had haunted him for the past thousand years. “Ianto Jones was something else.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you can see, I’ve been persuaded to write a sequel to this story – and quite right, probably, since I left it pretty much open. It’s the second out of two chapters, so I’ll try to explain everything in it, and I’m sorry it’s been so long since the first part. I hope you like it and, as always, feedback is appreciated.

Jack couldn’t move. He couldn’t even take a step back, as much as he wanted to; disbelief had slammed into him, leaving him shocked and unable to react. He took in a shaky breath and opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again.

 

“Speechless, huh?” Ianto’s eye betrayed nothing but scientific interest. “A never seen before sight. Jack Harkness doesn’t know what to say.”

 

Jack closed his eyes tightly and tried not to give in to the temptation of opening them again. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. What had he been thinking?

 

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I was being arrogant. It was ridiculous to think that you can bring someone from the dead with a snap of your fingers.” He managed to open his eyes again and saw that Ianto – or whatever this actually was – was still staring wordlessly at him. “I’m sorry, okay? I get it. You can’t do it. Just– don’t.” The image in front of him didn’t flicker and his voice got even quieter than before. “Just don’t.”

 

There were the beginnings of concern in those deep, ageless eyes and Ianto reached for him carefully, brushing his cheek with his long fingers. Jack didn’t move away from the touch – he couldn’t resist leaning into it, much to his own embarrassment – but didn’t say anything either. “Jack?” God, but his voice was just the same. “Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to– I shouldn’t have gone through the entire charade. I was just, you know.” Even that smile, that adorable little smile Ianto always had when he was ashamed of himself. Even that was the same. “Strengthening the effect it would have.”

 

Whatever effect he had been hoping for, he had it. It was a perfect copy of Ianto – tall, slim body that was mostly arms and legs and yet managed to be graceful. His face, his hair, even his clothes – and suits weren’t really convenient for this planet, given how much Moldox relied on factories and agriculture. Most of the clothes were practical and loose, but he – whatever he was – had found a suit that fit like a glove. He even wore the tie Jack had liked seeing most on Ianto.

 

“How would you be here, then?” Jack challenged, grasping Ianto’s shoulders. “Give me one simple explanation for _this_ and I’ll believe you.”

 

“I’ll explain it all,” Ianto said, laying a hand on Jack’s. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but you’ve got to calm down.” When Jack just kept staring at him unblinkingly, he sighed, irritated. “Okay then. Ask me something that only Ianto Jones would know.”

 

Jack frowned. It had been a long time; could there be something about him that Ianto would still remember in detail? Jack had made it a focus for himself to remember his lover, but he severely doubted that Ianto would have made the same effort.

 

But if there was something Ianto always remembered, it was his duties.

 

“Tell me the code Storage 254,” he said in the end. It had been the heavy duty weapon storage in Torchwood and the code had been a knowledge shared between the two of them alone.

 

“2534-6572-0821-4825-1946,” Ianto answered without a hint of hesitation and Jack finally let go of him, only to reach up and touch his cheek. “I promise you, Jack, I’ll explain everything. Just– trust me.”

 

And because Jack was desperate to believe him, he did.

 

Now that he knew it was really him – however strange and inexplicable it was – it was easier to reach out and touch him. It was inevitable to trace the fine contours of his face and caress his temples where those bright blue eyes were watching him with tentative hope as if he’d never left.

 

“How?” he whispered at last, voice choked and eyes hurting with the tears he wouldn’t have to shed now. “How can you possibly be here?”

 

“It’s a long story,” Ianto said carefully and took Jack’s hand. Now that the light had spread around the room, Jack could see that it was a richly decorated hall with a throne in the middle and a lot of seats on the sides, all empty. There was also a door just by the throne and it appeared to be where Ianto was leading him. “Luckily, I’ve got the time to tell it. But I guess it’d be easier to show you.”

 

**o.O.o**

The room they entered was something like a gallery. The paintings on the walls were held in heavy frames and some of them looked ancient – far older than anything human on this planet could possibly be.

 

“So,” Jack started, trying to sound as light-hearted as possible. “You’re human?”

 

“Mostly, yeah.” Ianto stopped in front of one of the paintings and pointed at it. “See that? It’s the Tantalus Eye. It’s been here thousands of years before the human colonies settled and by the time it appeared, there were mostly natives here on Moldox. They saw it as some great mystery, of course, but it’s really just a tear in the fabric of reality.”

 

“The natives?” Jack frowned. “But your receptionist told me that your family has been here for millennia.”

 

“We have been,” Ianto said quickly. “I’m getting to that. So, about twenty years ago, the first human spaceships reached Moldox. My parents were the pioneers, so to speak; the ones who had to see if it was habitable and whether the native species was willing to accept us. And they were.”

 

“But something went wrong?”

 

“Yes. They flew too high to the sky, came from the wrong direction. And the power of the Eye was like a magnet; it drew their ship in.”

 

“You got caught in the Time Vortex?” Jack raised an eyebrow. He’d been the only human able to survive this until now, and it was rather strange to imagine an entire ship doing it.

 

“ _They_ did,” Ianto stressed. “I wasn’t born until much, much later. So, they got caught in the Eye and it sent them back in time to the moment the Eye itself was created. They couldn’t find a way back.”

 

“So they settled there.” The conclusion of the story was forming in Jack’s head and Ianto nodded, pointing at the painting in front of them. It showed a white shiny oval – the spaceship, most likely – and a man and a woman coming out of it, surrounded by tall humanoid creatures with green skin and white hair – the native population of Moldox. “They did. And this is... well, the local equivalent of cave paintings. Imagine that – a species has just been born, they’re at the beginning of their evolution, and a spaceship crashes on their planet, full of strange beings that they’ve never seen before and that bring unknown flashy things with them. They started worshipping them as gods.

 

“No one – not even my father – knew what had happened to them and how the Vortex had changed them. They were in the relative safety of the spaceship, yes, but some of the energy got in and they soaked it in for days on end before they arrived, and that resulted in mutations. Ones, apparently, that can be passed on on the descendants.”

 

“So your mother and father–”

 

“My father,” Ianto cut him off. “The wife he brought from Earth decided that immortality was too much for her and she just– stopped. The locals call it ‘going to sleep’, and she lasted just over two centuries before doing it. My mother was another one from the pioneers – one that my father has known as a child, even if he’d taken the long way around before meeting her again.”

 

“How long has he been here before catching up with the people he’s arrived with?” Jack asked. He’d got hooked up in the story without even realising it and followed Ianto to the second painting – this time one showing a man in the same throne he’d seen, blond and blue-eyed. The hall was darker than when Jack had seen it, though, and there was a black crown on his head. Jack remembered Lilith’s words: _His father was often cruel to us, but the king we have now is kinder. They say that it’s because he grew up on Earth._

 

“Just over three thousand years.” Maybe he had had a right to be cruel, Jack thought. Many people would if they had spent so long in loneliness. “And when he met my mother again, he was ecstatic. The people here say it changed him completely. And then I was born.”

 

“How come you grew up in the 20th century, then?” Jack still couldn’t understand how he’d ended up knowing Ianto where he was if he was the child of the first colonists. “When were you born, actually?”

 

Ianto smiled. “3002. By then, they’ve figured out how to work out time travel in its basics, and my mother thought it was a good idea to be sent on Earth. She thought it would make me understand humans better; that I wouldn’t have to suffer the way my father did among foreigners. So when I was about a year old, they sent me in 1984. She didn’t want to, but she thought it’d be better for me and it would be little to no time when I would come back to her, fully grown and ready to be a better ruler than my father was. The rest is history.”

 

It seemed to be, really, because the next painting Jack saw was a woman – tall and slim, with long dark hair that fell down her shoulders in big curls – holding a baby that could be one person alone. It was apparently Ianto’s family’s history as seen by the people of Moldox, and he moved on to the one that showed the same woman in a glass case with Ianto’s father sitting next to it. “What happened to her?” He asked softly.

 

“She got ill about two years ago. That was when my father came on Earth, explained everything and took me with him to see her. He knew she was dying and wanted to let her say goodbye to the child she’d had such big plans for. I– I could have been kinder to both of them.” Ianto avoided Jack’s eyes, but the Captain pressed it.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I was angry. I was confused, too, but it explained a lot of things about me I didn’t understand, so I wasn’t all that surprised, but I was mostly angry. Angry that they’d left me there in the hands of a man who had no idea how to handle a child. Angry because of all the whispers about Alun Jones’s bastard child that looks nothing like his sister and ‘God knows who his mother had him with’. Angry at the fact that they left me in a backward world where I had to make my way around on my own. And I told them all that, and more. And she was dying, Jack. I tried to be kind, at least to her, but I’m not sure it worked. I’m not sure she really cared, either; she just wanted to see me.”

 

“Did your father offer you to stay?”

 

“He did,” Ianto admitted. “But I refused. I was in Three by then already and... It was too new. I didn’t want it.”

 

“You took a day off,” Jack remembered slowly. “For a _family reunion_.” When Ianto just nodded gingerly, Jack felt himself smiling. “Your sense of humour will never cease to amaze me.”

 

Ianto gave him one of his rare grins and he looked genuinely happy, but Jack knew him well enough to tell that there was something else lurking in his eyes; something that he couldn’t quite hide. It took a moment to recognise it, but Jack was accustomed enough to carrying it with himself to recognise it.

 

 

And in just the same instant, he also realised what Ianto could feel guilty for. “You abandoned me,” he said quietly. “Thames House, the House of the Dead... and you never showed up anymore.”

 

“I was dead for a few days,” Ianto said quietly, looking away from Jack once more. “Just enough for things to settle in on Earth and for you to leave; then I got called home. My mother was dead and my father said that he was too tired to go on. Someone had to handle these people and I was the only one who could.”

 

“And you couldn’t have found me?” Jack’s voice was dripping with bitter disbelief, but he couldn’t help it. “You couldn’t have taken me with you? Why didn’t you say anything?” He didn’t give him a chance to respond. “I blamed myself for this – for you – every single day in the past thousand years, and you’ve been here, alive and well, for how long?”

 

Ianto fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable. “Three months.”

 

Jack’s laughter had a slightly hysterical note to it. “Three months. Brilliant. Fucking _fantastic_.”

 

“How could I know that you’d want me to come back?” There was desperation in Ianto’s words, as if he was trying to worm his way out of the conversation, but Jack wasn’t going to let him. Not this time.

 

“I love you,” he gritted out, gripping Ianto by the shoulders once more as he saw the young man’s eyes widen and his body stiffen. “I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ve suffered all the while, and you come here and tell me that you couldn’t be sure I’d want you back. No, Ianto Jones.” His voice was even lower now, anger dripping from every word. “I’m not buying it.”

 

“Jack...” Ianto was forced to look at him now and he sighed deeply as he gave in. “It would have been easier that way.”

 

“Easier?” Jack congratulated himself for managing to put enough poison in that single word to make Ianto wince uncomfortably.

 

“I’m practically like you,” Ianto started tentatively. “Unless I choose to die, I won’t die. And... I don’t know. I thought we’d be better off alone. Not getting in each other’s way and all that.”

 

Jack tried to get his temper under control before answering. It didn’t work very well, but he managed it enough to keep his voice even. “Ianto, do you have any idea how many people I’ve lost? Even before I met you for the first time, that is. All I see is the people I love grow tired of me, grow angrier because they change and I don’t. All I see is people dying.” When Ianto didn’t say anything, he went on. “And I’m tired of it. I’m so tired, Ianto, and I came into this castle with the realisation that I could bring one person back – one single person – and keep them forever. And I chose you.”

 

“You were desperate,” Ianto objected. “Even before I knew it was you, I heard you, and all I could get from you was the desperation to get someone back. And I wanted to help you, so I told Lilith to lure you in somehow.” Ianto laughed quietly. “Imagine my surprise when I started rummaging through your brain and realised that it was me you wanted back.”

 

Jack finally found it in himself to smile. “Do you lurk in here all the time?” he asked. He remembered sitting in the garden just a few hours ago and thinking how much Ianto would have liked it.

 

Ianto shook his head. “No. People don’t know it’s me, of course – they’d rip me apart to grand them wishes if they knew – but I wander about all the time.” He offered Jack his hand and it was more of a peace offering than anything else. “Care to join me in the gardens, Jack?”

 

And this time, Jack didn’t even hesitate before nodding eagerly.

 

**o.O.o**

Jack looked sideways at Ianto as the man looked up at the Tantalus Eye, eyes filled with the very same awe he’d imagined they’d have. He must have seen it a million times, but it had yet to grow old, and that wasn’t much of a surprise – if there was one thing Jack was sure of when it came to Ianto, it was that he never got bored of the Universe.

 

He’d thought it was strange at first; to think that Ianto was a boy from the colonies just like him. But now, the more he stared at him, the more he realised that he looked fully in his territory here. He hadn’t grown up on Moldox, but it was where he’d been born, and in the end, few things mattered more than that.

 

“This is your home, isn’t it?” Ianto gave him a curious look and nodded. “It’s really easy to imagine you here, that’s all. In the far future, off-Earth,” Jack explained softly. “It’s just really – you.”

 

Ianto laughed. “It’s better than Cardiff, yes. I feel it closer to myself; as if something wasn’t quite right before and I’ve placed it perfectly now. I want to travel, too, but the responsibility here is a bit much to allow myself that.”

 

“Where do you want to go?” Jack asked. There was an idea forming in his head and, while it was still too vague, he could work with it.

 

Ianto shrugged. “Anywhere, anywhen. You name it, I want it.”

 

Jack laughed out loud and patted him on the back. “That’s my boy! And if we find a time machine? How would you feel about travelling then? We could come back before your planet even knows we’ve been gone.”

 

“’We’?” Ianto raised an eyebrow. He seemed amused, but hopeful too and the Captain knew that he’d agree to anything if it meant that he could rule his country and travel about at the same time.

 

Jack nodded with a smile, still not looking away from his lover. He felt physically unable to tear his eyes away from Ianto’s delicate features and bright eyes and he thought he could forever be in awe of the effortless, ethereal perfection that made up the man he’d loved for the past millennium. “Yes, ‘we’. I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again.”

 

This time, Ianto smiled too and when Jack brought him closer so he could lean his head on his shoulder, the young man let him. “Suits me just fine.”


End file.
